Many were worried that, with the coming of the Obama administration, our country's budding relationship with India would fall apart - thus reversing the one big foreign-policy success of the Bush administration. It was feared that Obama would return to Clinton's policy of scolding India over its nuclear program and cold-shouldering it in other areas.
Well, it looks like those fears were overblown. Of all countries on the planet, India is perhaps the most important one for us to build a solid, friendly, open relationship with. It stands at the head of a group of large multiethnic emerging democracies - the others being Indonesia, Brazil, and South Africa - whose impact on the 21st century may be as important as was that of the medium-sized mono-ethnic industrial states (Germany, Japan, Britain, France) in the 19th and 20th. More and more, countries that look a bit like the U.S. are starting to come to fore in international affairs; we need to befriend them, teach them the secrets of our success, and help raise their importance in the international order. That process starts with India.
In other news, against the predictions of many, Hillary Clinton is turning out to be an excellent Secretary of State.
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